Author Responsibilities

I go on and on – and on – about author morals and responsibilities. About authors who should know better and give a damn instead of romanticising things that are disgusting. About being okay with making regimes run by dictators (Russia!) out to be sexy when tens of thousands of people are dying.

Newbie historical romance author Joanna Shupe has a lot of talent. I have enjoyed her first two books and have been looking forward to her third.

HOWEVER…

Because I like her books, I visited her Pinterest board. This is what I saw on her “Historical Hotties” board:

Fucking STALIN. The man responsible for killing millions upon millions of people. The man who from 1932 to 1933 alone killed ten million people just in Ukraine.

And he’s a “hottie”. Would you put Hitler on there? Would that be okay?

This is my problem with romance authors. Too many are so caught up romanticising the crap out of anything and everything they take no responsibility and give the wider world no thought. And they damn well should.

I’m so angry, not just because this is indefensible, and not just because people I know barely survived this genocide, but because Shupe is a brilliant author and now every time I read one of her books, THIS is what I’m going to be thinking of.